Build tools

Bootstrap uses Grunt for its CSS and JavaScript build system and Jekyll for the written documentation. Our Gruntfile includes convenient methods for working with the framework, including compiling code, running tests, and more.

Builds and tests CSS, JavaScript, and other assets which are used when running the documentation locally via jekyll serve.

grunt watch

This is a convenience method for watching just Sass files and automatically building them whenever you save.

Autoprefixer

Bootstrap uses Autoprefixer (included in our Gruntfile and build process) to automatically add vendor prefixes to some CSS properties at build time. Doing so saves us time and code by allowing us to write key parts of our CSS a single time while eliminating the need for vendor mixins like those found in v3.

We maintain the list of browsers supported through Autoprefixer in a separate file within our GitHub repository. See /grunt/postcss.js for details.

Local documentation

Running our documentation locally requires the use of Jekyll, a decently flexible static site generator that provides us: basic includes, Markdown-based files, templates, and more. Here’s how to get it started:

Run through the tooling setup above to install Jekyll (the site builder) and other Ruby dependencies with bundle install.

From the root /bootstrap directory, run bundle exec jekyll serve in the command line.